Born: November 14, 1954, Birmingham, AL

Education: University of Denver, B.A. cum laude, 1974, Ph.D., 1981; University of Notre Dame, M.A., 1975

When the president named her National Security Advisor (2001–05) and Secretary of State (2005–09), Rice became the first black woman and second black person appointed to both offices. A former Stanford University professor and provost, she was the youngest of President George Bush's advisors. She stayed close to him, as he had little experience in world affairs. Rice, pundits think, defined his foreign policy of democracy, development, and war on terror. A Soviet Union and Eastern Europe specialist, she evinced her toughness in US–Russian negotiations over missile defense. National interests and realities, not American military power alone, shaped her strategic thinking and advising.

Rice's education and faith in equality prepared her for such powerful roles. Growing up in the Jim Crow South, she instilled high ideals, in a Newsweek interview stating: “My parents had me absolutely convinced that, well, you may not be able to have a hamburger at Woolworth's but you can be president of the United States” (Brant, 2001). Racial, class, and gender equity must be pursued by embracing and practicing values of tolerance and social justice, she told a college commencement audience, because we live “in an age where too often difference is still seen as a license to kill.”